A Steady Rain: Theater Review

Story: Denny and Joey have been best friends
since kindergarten. The two Catholic kids, probably from one of the
poorer neighborhoods in Chicago, grew up to become police officers,
members of Chicago’s finest. Years of working the streets have
hardened Denny, who is married and has two young sons and is prone
to fits of testosterone-laced rants, as well as Joey, a lonely
bachelor who seeks refuge in a bottle when he isn’t being ridiculed
by Denny because of his lifestyle. Both men twice have been passed
over for the coveted job of detective, which Joey surmises has more
to do with racial quotas than their own abilities.

Their lives change abruptly when they’re brought before Internal
Affairs to explain their actions which led to the death of a young
man. As they recount the story, Denny was seeking revenge against a
pimp who had shot at his house, breaking window glass that severed
an artery in Denny’s infant son’s neck. While the boy is in
critical condition at a local hospital, Denny pursues the
villainous Walter Lorenz, who regularly assaults a prostitute whom
Denny often patronizes in exchange for ‘favors.’ The two cops come
across a naked and delirious teen whom they promptly return to his
‘uncle,’ which leads to murder and brings them up to account for
their actions. With their personal and professional lives
unraveling, the two lifelong pals find themselves battling for
survival.

Highlights: Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig set
box-office records on Broadway in 2009 for their portrayals of two
highly flawed police officers in this harrowing, haunting and dark
one-act drama by playwright Keith Huff. Huff premiered his
award-winning effort in his home town of Chicago in 2007, alluding
to the grisly horrors of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and also
bringing to mind another psychopath, John Wayne Gacy, as background
for his intense, psychological story. Like many works that deal
with the moral ambiguity of desensitized cops (Internal
Affairs, The New Centurions), Huff’s harrowing story
shows how the relentless pressures of the job -- a steady rain –
ultimately can wear down the best intentions of any idealistic
public protector.

Other Info: Rep artistic director Steven Woolf
masterfully paces this taut, tingling and terrifying tale of two
men caught in a precipitously downward spiral. The one act plays
out over some 95 minutes, yet it never bogs down, thanks to the
steady guidance of Woolf and the gripping performances of Joey
Collins and Michael James Reed as the tortured officers.

Huff alternates banter between the two friends – sometimes
jovial, oftentimes caustic and incendiary -- with monologues
delivered by each to the unseen Internal Affairs team that grills
them about the facts behind the fatal incident. The shift in
presentation styles allows both actors to explore different
dimensions of their roles and more fully flesh out the characters.
Both men do so in exemplary fashion as they depict Denny and Joey
moving emotionally in opposite directions, one consumed with a
muddled quest for revenge while the other is drawn by a quietly
understated love toward the light of possible redemption.

Robert Mark Morgan’s stark and squalid scenic design is
accentuated by the drab and dreary surroundings of a police
interrogation room comprised of a shabby table and chairs and some
dingy walls badly in need of paint. Peter Sargent’s shrewd,
perceptive lighting underscores the depressing locale with an
occasional reference to the garish and gritty urban background that
Denny and Joey attempt to control seen through occasionally opened
window blinds.

Dorothy Marshall Englis dresses the characters in subtly
different fashion, Joey in button-down shirt and khakis contrasting
with the more temperamental Denny’s tight jeans and leather jacket,
while Rusty Wandall’s sound emphasizes that ongoing moisture offset
by a shriek of rock music at pivotal moments.

The climax of A Steady Rain is sobering and arresting,
but a logical conclusion to the tale that Huff weaves as inexorably
as the title suggests, as truth and consequences yield their just
desserts.

Rating: A 4.5 on a scale of 1-to-5.

Group: Repertory Theatre of St. Louis

Venue: Emerson Studio Theatre, Loretto-Hilton
Center, 130 Edgar Road

Dates: Through February 5 Tickets: $45-$58;
contact 968-4925 or repstl.org